Contents

We use a Plane as emitter object. Scale it to your liking. I have used a relatively large particle system, so my plane has a length of 15 BU (Blender units).

Figure 2a: Adding particle systems. First particle system on the left hand side, a second particle system on the right hand side

Add a particle system (Fig 2a, left hand side).

Amount: 25

Sta: 1

End: 250

Emit from:

Random

Faces

Even

Random

Initial Velocity

Normal: 22

Random: 7

AccZ: -9.8

Visualisation:Line

Back: 1.1

A few particles (25) are created in the first 250 frames of the animation and emitted upwards. Gravitation, velocity and lifetime are adjusted so, that the particles reach the end of their lifetime at the topmost point of their trajectory.

The Line visualization lets the particles appear as long drawn-out line.

Bake the particle system. Use 500 as the End frame for bake. 300 would be sufficient here, but 500 do no harm.

Noob Note: Bake is in the Bake tab next to particle system tab in particle buttons window.

The plane will get a Halo material.

Activate Halo in the Links and Pipeline panel.

Halo: color red

Halo Size: 0.421

Hard: 35

I've adjusted the size and hardness of the halo so long until I liked it, so there is no specific reason to use these values.

The settings for the first particle system are no longer shown, now it reads 1 Part 2 (Fig. 2a, right hand side).

Click on Add New, now it reads 2 Part 2.

You just have created a second particle system. Rename this system, a good naming convention will help you a lot to keep the overview.

Figure 3a: The first reactor system

Activate React on: Death.

Life: 104

Emit from:Particles

You don't have to set anything for the Target. It is not necessary to set the target object if it is the same object as the reactor. You just have to set the number of the target particle system eventually.

The Reactor particles react on the Death of the particles of the target system. They will be emitted from the point that the particles occupy at their death.

To control the movement of the system, I have made following setting in the Physics panel:

Particle: 0.345

Reactor: 10

AccZ: -0.09

Brown: 3.86

Because of the Reactor setting the star is moving away from the emitting particles. The Brown movement lets the trajectory appear trembling like affected by wind.

The third (and last) particle system is again a Reactor system and is reacting to the second system. It's going to react to the Nearness of the particles. Without moving the variation of the particles is created with a texture and a random variation of their lifespan. What Blender considers as close can be changed with the particle Size.